A fencing Jason Isaacs--in tights, no less!! Sorry--a historical drama concerning machinations and maneuverings in the court of Spain's Philip II, erstwhile husband to England's Queen Mary Tudor and dispatcher of the ill-fated Armada. Velvet and ruffed collars. Unfortunately, it appeared only sporadically in theatres, and is tough to find even on DVD.

I'm not quite sure where to put my thoughts, but since this is the most recent post on this thread... here goes!

I meant to say something earlier, but I finally watched my DVD (which came the slow route via London and a friend's post box there and then Philadelphia). I watched it with my Spanish friend who was staying with me this summer/fall. He's from Spain (Sevilla to be exact), so when we watched the extra bits, which were in Spanish, he translated what I couldn't.

Since I don't have a dual region dvd player, I had to play it on my laptop, which meant that we had to balance it between us (One leg each-it's a good thing we're friends!) because the sound was so quiet.

We did choose the English language version, which surprisingly did not seemed to be dubbed even for the Spanish actors. (My Spanish friend lip read and was shocked at this development, but then if Antonio Banderas could memorize English scripts for his first Hollywood movies, perhaps it wasn't so strange. We did check out the Spanish version and that one was definitely dubbed.) It was enjoyable. I was hoping that it would have been a little bit...deeper, and perhaps less of the May-December romance between the young girl and the police-like guy (as it took away from the actual Plotting of the main characters). It seemed to be an extra flair of the unnecessary. It would've benefited from a more focused script, and I'm not just saying that because I'm biased and wanted more Jason, but personally, as ancient historians, we were interested in the main point of the story (but that is my personal bias (and my friend's) & I'm assuming not one shared by lots of other folks). This was one of my first exposures to Spanish films (that were not Pan's Labyrinth or other del Toro films), and my friend said the quality- as far as he was concerned - was fairly typical- but those are his words, not mine -so please direct all pitchforks and torchlit processions of protest towards Europe. ;^> I really wanted to know how she lost her eye (I had to look that up). And I wish that they had fleshed out the actual relationship between Perez and Her (how did they come together and form this idea), as well as the one with his wife- because the last scene with them (the only scene really where they are together) felt like there should have been...More. It was enjoyable, but I wouldn't say it was deep. But I do have to say that Jason does look very nice in tights. And I definitely think that he should explore the idea of a "sword and sandals" movie, because I think he'd be able to carry off Roman armor (a la Augustus Prima Porta). ;^>

My reaction to this movie is pretty much the same as yours (and your friend's), Lady S. It was like they hadn't decided what story to tell, so they tried to tell all of them, and didn't really tell any one of them good enough. And sorry, but that police man and the young girl was creepy, if you ask me (and the girl wasn't the best actress I've seen either).
I think there are more reactions in this thread if you want to read them: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3003

Yeah, we were a little skeeved out by that story line, too. We watched the extra that was the long interview and discussion about the movie (FYI in case folks were scared away by all of the Spanish): the actors talked in their native languages, so Jason and a couple of others spoke in English). Apparently, the young girl was the daughter of the director (we think- at least that is what my friend said while he was translating the Spanish- I would like to think that he knows his own language, but who knows- he could have missed a key word) - so that might explain how she got her part. But he said that she is relatively well-known in Spain, and that he's seen her in many other things.